Configuration testing for your Spark site

The objective of configuration testing is to ensure that configuration decisions made throughout the implementation have been applied to the platform and have been set up as expected so that you can successfully manage your program. Configuration testing takes place in the staging environment before all decisions are migrated to the production environment.

Configuration Testing Readiness

Before beginning configuration testing, all major site decisions should be confirmed and applied to the site. Configuration testing readiness should be confirmed by the program admin by acknowledging that the project is at a phase where all configuration decisions have been applied to the staging site to mirror the production site upon the go live date.

Objectives

• Confirm configuration has been applied as expected
• Provide feedback on configuration if changes are required or if a setting is unclear
• Approve configuration setup in preparation of moving to the production environment for launch

Objective Examples

• Confirming the cause filters are set up correctly, so that users can engage with causes as expected
• Ensuring the correct modules are enabled (i.e., giving, volunteering) for the correct groups and experiences
• Ensuring the correct approval flows have been enabled as expected (i.e. all users can create giving opportunities)
• Ensuring feature specific configuration has been applied as expected (specific date ranges for volunteer tracking or external match requests)
• Confirming the correct budget caps are displaying for users

What to Know

To ensure configuration testing is successful, there are several key considerations to understand about the configuration testing process. It’s important to note that Spark is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product, which means that the interface is largely non-configurable as all Benevity clients have the same base site. Configuration testing is not intended to request changes to Spark's interface, attempting to break the system, or requesting non-configurable changes in the site (e.g. change the main navigation bar or the layout of the site). However, if you have feedback about the product overall or design feedback, let your Implementation Consultant know and they will submit ideas to our Product team for future consideration.

Steps to Complete Configuration Testing

Recommendations

• Configuration testing should be done on all available experiences configured if applicable (i.e. individuals mapped to various currency experiences if applicable).
• Configuration testing should be done on the various localized experiences if applicable (i.e. if some groups of people have different budgets, currency experiences, or access to different site features).

Next Steps

Now that you understand what configuration testing entails, your Benevity project team will create configuration specific scripts for your program which will include instructions for the individuals that will be involved in testing. Please note that the configuration testing phase of the project will follow the design and build phases.